You’ve Got Heart But…

It really breaks my heart when people who are full of good intentions as well as great passions and well-placed hopes for the future are simply not logistically gifted. In many of the progressive circles I’ve run in, this is just a fact of life. It doesn’t seem odd, as a result, that there are many perfectly reasonable people who pick on far-left progressives indiscriminately. I suppose I don’t blame them.

A common sentiment in IGR is: it’s social justice work. Shrug.

One place where this came up in agonizing clarity was during my work with the Farmington Hills School District on their youth dialogue program. While everyone I worked with was good-intentioned and passionate, I felt like we ran into stumbling blocks at every step. These included logistical problems (When are the high school students supposed to have dialogues? Which groups will be paired with which? What time are we supposed to leave Ann Arbor?) as well as somewhat more esoteric issues (Why haven’t we talked about gender, gender identity, and gender expression? How come we aren’t talking about White Flight and the role of race in the formation of metropolitan Detroit?). Sure, it was a pilot program, but it was also reaffirming of the view that progressives have poor planning skills.

I’m guilty of it too, don’t get me wrong. But it’s a trend that needs to be examined.

If we want to affect change, I think we need to make a change. Seriously.